Crews make quicker work of snow amid low traffic

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Heavy snow covered the region again Tuesday morning, but a Columbia Public Works spokesman said crews were off to a good start clearing roads.

“Things are going very well this morning,” Steve Sapp said. “We’d like to send our thanks to all the motorists who heeded city and county leaders’ request to stay off roadways. Roadways were much, much easier to clear this morning” than during last week’s storm.

The timing of the storm — which hit overnight, as opposed to the storm that started midmorning Thursday — also helped, Sapp said.

By 6 a.m., 6 inches of snow had fallen at Columbia Regional Airport, said Gary Schmocker, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. About 3 more inches of snow was expected today, Schmocker said, and northwest portions of Columbia might see heavier snowfall.

Breaks in snowfall were expected, with light snow continuing into the night and possibly tomorrow, Schmocker said.

“It looks like any snow on Wednesday won’t accumulate at all,” he said.

No more precipitation is expected this week after that, Schmocker said, but temperatures will continue to be chilly, with highs in the 30s.

City crews were working on clearing snow off of first- and second-priority streets, Sapp said. Slushy snow is harder to plow, he said, because it is heavier.

“I equate it to snow shoveling,” he said. “When you’re shoveling light snow, it’s light and fluffy and you get a big shovel and you can pull it out pretty easily. You get wet snow, and it’s heavy and a lot of hard work.”

Columbia Public Works has had a full crew working since yesterday. Sapp said he hoped that by tomorrow roads would be in better shape for motorists to travel to work. He said the department would continue to put out new information throughout the day.

Greg Edington, assistant manager with Boone County Public Works, said that by midmorning, crews had gotten to about 50 percent of county priority routes and roughly 30 percent of gravel roads.

“That’s not to say that they’ve been cleared bank to bank or roadside to roadside, but at least we’ve got a path we can get down,” he said.

Low-hanging telephone and electric lines made it difficult for tall trucks to get down some roads, Edington said. Some crews had to be pulled off routes to help emergency services get to downed power lines and electrical fires, he said.

City and county offices and the city bus system were closed today, as were schools and many businesses. Columbia Public Schools hadn’t made a official call about tomorrow before the Tribune’s deadline, but Deputy Superintendent Nick Boren said there’s a “fair chance” school sites won’t be ready.

“We have a tremendous amount of ground to cover to clear all our parking lots and sidewalks,” Boren said. “We’re kind of waiting for the snow to fully subside before we begin all of that work.”

He said he expected crews would be working “probably into the wee hours of the night.” The district planned to make a call by this evening on whether school will be in session tomorrow.

The University of Missouri planned to make a decision about tomorrow’s classes this afternoon, spokeswoman Mary Jo Banken said.